Unfortunately, when some defendants find themselves in front of courtrooms, they need a lot more than a string of character witnesses. There might be someone who is the key to prove innocence, and with our superb skills at finding missing persons, we can find a person and help bring them to court. That is when International Investigators gets a call.

In other cases, a subpoena needs to be served but the particular person in question seems to have vanished.

Depending on the unique needs of each legal case, our investigators are versatile. They can and do jump right into the middle of whatever is necessary. And that is exactly what we did when Clay and his defense attorney contacted us.

Clay was on his way to trial for business embezzlement. His two business partners believed that, for years, he had stolen money from the company partnership. But Clay insisted that he had been set up by one of the partners to take the fall.

Clay wanted our office to launch a financial investigation into the possibly criminal activity of Derek, one of his former partners. Our investigators found a couple of off-shore accounts, under Derek's youngest child's name.

Further research unraveled a lot of big spending done by Derek, but only in other states and countries. For example, he purchased a beach condo in the Dominican Republic. Five months earlier, he bought a new Lexus in Florida. Last year, on his business expenses, he wrote off two trips to Grand Cayman Islands, supposedly to attend meetings with clients.

With additional financial forensics, it became apparent that one particular clerk in the accounting department probably knew what was going on. All the suspicious transactions were handled by her. But she had resigned with no notice over a year ago and no one knew where she was since she had moved out of state right about the same time.

Providing the attorney with that information, the police brought her in for questioning. Her conscience was guilty and her story was compelling. Indeed, Derek had had sticky fingers and he used her to gain access to business funds. She also explained that Derek had signed off on checks for supplies and computers, which had never been accounted for. In the end, he had paid her a sum to quit and move and then a monthly check came to be sure she never came back.

This was one time when finding a missing person became the witness that changed the fate of the defendant by proving his innocence.

When it comes down to finding what someone is trying so hard to hide – or when someone is trying to hide themselves - International Investigators is hard to beat.